Losang Chö kyi Gyaltsen () (1570–1662) was the fourth

Panchen Lama The Panchen Lama () is a tulku of the Gelug school of Tibetan Buddhism. Panchen Lama is one of the most important figures in the Gelug tradition, with its spiritual authority second only to Dalai Lama. Along with the council of high lamas, h ...

of the

Gelug 240px, The 14th Dalai Lama (center), the most influential figure of the contemporary Gelug tradition, at the 2003 Bodhgaya (India). The Gelug (, also Geluk; "virtuous")Kay, David N. (2007). ''Tibetan and Zen Buddhism in Britain: Transplantati ...

school of

Tibetan Buddhism Tibetan Buddhism (also referred to as Indo-Tibetan Buddhism, Lamaism, Lamaistic Buddhism, Himalayan Buddhism, and Northern Buddhism) is the form of Buddhism practiced in Tibet and Bhutan, where it is the dominant religion. It is also in majo ...

and the first to be accorded this title during his lifetime. Losang Chö kyi Gyaltsen was the teacher and close ally of the

5th Dalai Lama Ngawang Lobsang Gyatso (; ; 1617–1682) was the 5th Dalai Lama and the first Dalai Lama to wield effective temporal and spiritual power over all Tibet. He is often referred to simply as the Great Fifth, being a key religious and temporal leader ...

, called "the Great". The "Great Fifth" gave him

Tashilhunpo Monastery Tashi Lhunpo Monastery (), founded in 1447 by the 1st Dalai Lama, is the traditional monastic seat of the Panchen Lama, and an historically and culturally important monastery in Shigatse, the second-largest city in Tibet. The monastery was sa ...

as a living place and declared him to be an incarnation of Amitābha, and since then, every Panchen Lama has been the master of Tashilhunpo. When Losang Chö kyi Gyaltsen died in 1662, aged 91 or 92, the Fifth Dalai Lama began the tradition of recognising his reincarnation. He composed a special prayer asking his master to return and ordered the monks of the great monasteries to recite it. He also reserved the title of ''Panchen'' (short for ''Pandita chen po'' or 'Great Scholar'), which had previously been a courtesy title for all learned lamas, exclusively for him, and this title has continued to be given to his successors and, posthumously, to his predecessors starting with

Khedrup Gelek Pelzang, 1st Panchen Lama Khedrup Gelek Pelzang, 1st Panchen Lama (1385–1438 CE) – better known as Khedrup Je – was one of the main disciples of Je Tsongkhapa, whose reforms to Atiśa's Kadam tradition are considered the beginnings of the Gelug ...

. The 4th Panchen Lama was a prolific writer and teacher, composing more than three hundred works. He wrote a root Mahamudra text on the "''Highway of the Conquerors: Root Verses for the Precious Geden elugKagyu ralTransmission of Mahāmudrā''" (''dGe-ldan bka'-brgyud rin-po-che'i phyag-chen rtsa-ba rgyal-ba'i gzhung-lam'') and its auto commentary (the ''Yang gsal sgron me, "Lamp re-illuminating Mahamudra"''), which is still widely taught and commented upon.Jackson, Roger, "The dGe ldan-bKa' brgyud Tradition of Mahamudra How Much dGe ldan? How Much bKa' brgyud?" in ''Newland, Guy, Changing Minds: Contributions to the Study of Buddhism and Tibet in Honor of Jeffrey Hopkins 2001 p. 155''. Before this work, Gelug writings on Mahamudra tended to follow orthodox Kagyu teachings. This text and its auto commentary have become a central work on Mahamudra in the Gelug school. The current

14th Dalai Lama The 14th Dalai Lama (spiritual name Jetsun Jamphel Ngawang Lobsang Yeshe Tenzin Gyatso, known as Tenzin Gyatso (Tibetan: བསྟན་འཛིན་རྒྱ་མཚོ་, Wylie: ''bsTan-'dzin rgya-mtsho''); né Lhamo Thondup), known as ...

and Lama Yeshe are some of the modern Gelug figures which have written commentaries on this key Gelug Mahamudra text.Dalai Lama (Author), Alexander Berzin (Author), The Gelug/Kagyu Tradition of Mahamudra.

Footnotes

Panchen Lama 04 1662 deaths 1570 births 16th-century Tibetan people 17th-century Tibetan people {{Tibetan-Buddhism-stub